Lucien Bersot

Lucien Jean Baptiste Bersot (June 7, 1881 – February 13, 1915) was a French soldier executed for refusing to wear trousers that had belonged to a dead person. His story was taken up by and adapted for television by Yves Boisset.

Private Bersot Lucien Jean Baptiste Bersot was born on June 7, 1881, in Authoison (Haute-Saône) in a family of small farmers. His parents had come to settle in Besançon, Lucien learned the profession of farrier there and married there in 1908 before becoming the father of a girl in 1909.

When the First World War broke out, he was 33 years old. He was Mobilized into the 60th infantry regiment, which was on the Aisne front during the winter of 1914–1915, and had just suffered heavy losses near Soissons. However, the general staff judging this regiment not very active had just entrusted its command, on January 22, 1915, to Lieutenant-Colonel François Maurice Auroux, a former member of the African troops, responsible for whipping the unit into shape.

The case As there were no longer any trousers in his size in the store, Lucien Bersot could only wear the white canvas one supplied in his kit which was handed over during induction. Shivering from the cold in the trenches, he asked on February 11, 1915, the quartermaster, for red woollen trousers (le pantalon rouge) identical to those worn by his comrades. The sergeant then offered him tattered and bloodstained trousers, taken from a dead soldier, which Bersot refused.

For this refusal, Lucien Bersot was sentenced to eight days in prison by Lieutenant André. But Lieutenant-Colonel Auroux, commander of the regiment, considered this punishment insufficient and requested that he appear before a court-martial. As new recruits who had not yet been seasoned had just arrived, his intention was clearly to make an example of Bersot.

Before the regiment's “special” Council of War, chaired by Auroux, Bersot was condemned to death. Lucien 5, a tribute song by the group La Poupee du Loup which won thanks to it, almost a hundred years later to the day, the final of the third national springboard “C'est ma chance! on France Bleu, with several partial and full broadcasts on the air between January and March 2015. The song was notably commented on by Eric Bastien and Laurent Petitguillaume in Le Mag Musiques 7. It was also performed "live" at the Maison de la Radio in Paris in the program" Elo Mélodie " on 8, 9 and May 10, 2015.